It's a game
by MyBrokenButterfly
Summary: The five times they meet. Pre-movie, slightly AU


Pre-movie. The five times they meet.

Sidenote: This is the first time I've written for a superhero fandom and I haven't read the comics so please don't get on my case about details...

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_I._

The mission had been simple. Kill the man who's a threat to her current employer.

Politics, while not her favorite subject, always provide her with work.

So, she goes to the gala event her target is attending. The room is crowded with dirty diplomats and aristocrats with ulterior motives. A disgusting atmosphere but wonderful breeding ground for her kind of work.

She takes her time, catching his attention with shy glances and sly smiles. Soon, he's coming towards her with drinks in his hands, offering her one. Sipping it, she plays nicely, coyly until he escorts her away from the gathering and into a private part of the manor.

She expected nothing less. As he kisses at her neck, rough whiskers scratching the delicate skin exposed, she slips out a knife from her thigh, ready to end it.

But, she never gets the chance. Glass shatters and an arrow ends up piercing her targets heart. She watches as he falls to the ground with barely concealed surprise.

Whipping her head around to the broken window, she doesn't have the time to see more than gray eyes in the night.

She slips the knife away fast enough that when the doors burst open, she pretends to be devastated and in shock. Tears stream down her face and she points at the dead body with a shaking hand, mouth opened as if to scream.

In the commotion of the fallen diplomat, she slips away. Tears instantly dry up and her face turns angry. How dare someone take away her target!

_II._

She doesn't find the archer for three months but she knows those eyes anywhere. After careful investigation and surveillance, she figures out who his target is.

Fair is fair.

He hunts like a criminal but has far more grace than commoners. Instead of getting up close to the target, he prefers a perch, high above to strike from.

So, she gets close to the target as she likes to, and strikes before the archer can. A knife is not the cleanest method but it always gets the job done in the end. She discards her soiled jacket in a dumpster three blocks away, due to be emptied in the morning.

She knows he's watching her.

She can almost hear _let the games begin_ echo through the trees.

Oh, how she will enjoy this.

_III._

He takes out her target one day after she receives her orders.

That's cheating, she thinks, because all of her research is solely on her and surely he has someone backing him if he knows this quickly.

But she'll show him. She'll do better.

_IV._

She says she'll do better but, for four months straight, he takes out his target with speed and precision it almost makes her jealous.

He doesn't touch any of hers during this time and she thinks that maybe it's one of the rules they have. One per turn only. Well, at least he's a gentleman about it.

Finally, she catches whiff of his potential assignment. He hasn't been assigned it yet which makes it even better.

She finishes the job seven minutes before he arrives on scene.

They make eye contact, he in his perch, she escaping from the window where she killed a man.

She tips her lips up in a smirk and in the moonlight, she thinks he's smiling too.

_V._

One day, they meet face to face and she sees more than just his gray eyes and the silhouette of a man with a bow.

One day, he's standing before her with an arrow at her chest while she's pointing a gun to his head.

"What shall we do about this?" It's the first thing she says to him and she wonders if it'll be the last.

She can see the world on his shoulders as his grips his choice weapon. "I have orders to kill you."

Well, she thinks, at least she'll go out by the hands of someone she respects. She lowers her gun, unconsciously uncocking it and putting the safety on before setting it on the ground.

She looks him straight in the eye because if she's going to die, she will not look away from her killer.

He lowers the bow, "I never liked following orders." He comments, off handedly.

She snorts, "No one in our line of business actually likes following orders." Her posture loosens but that doesn't mean she isn't ready to attack or flee.

And somehow, in the midst of this, he convinces her to come back with him and follow the orders his boss gives him because at least he's doing some good for this terrible world.

It's not like she had much of a choice. Follow or die.

He's interesting so she follows. Her life was getting a little boring.


End file.
